Today is the 4th anniversary of The Homeschool Lounge, an online community that offers friendship and support to homeschooling moms.
If you haven’t visited this community yet, you’re in for a treat. Homeschooling is a challenging lifestyle that’s much easier to manage if you don’t go it alone. And you don’t have to when you hang out at The Homeschool Lounge.
In honor of this milestone, I’m offering my new book, Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings, free today.
Congratulations and many more anniversaries to The Homeschool Lounge!
Shortly after moving here six months ago, I received an offer in the mail for a year of Woman’s Day and a year of Country Living for the ridiculously low price of $10…for both!
This was too much temptation for me. Even though I long ago pruned down my magazine intake, I decided it wouldn’t hurt for a year. And if by some chance it was a scam, I’d only be out $10, right?
Well, it wasn’t a scam, at least not in the way I was thinking. Though it took a good two months for the issues to show up, they are showing up. And they’re ok, I guess. It’s been years since I “took a magazine,” as my grandma used to say, and I didn’t realize how full of ads they are now. In the case of Woman’s Day, they also have pretty much the same content they always did: recipes, diets and crafts. I’m flipping through them pretty quickly as there’s not much that catches my eye; Country Living is a little better than Woman’s Day, though.
But that’s not the problem. The problem is that I now know how and why they can offer these magazines so cheaply: they must have sold my name and address to everyone and his brother! I’m being inundated with catalogs, flyers and life insurance offers. I’m getting mail from companies I didn’t know still existed; apparently they spend their marketing dollars on direct mail instead of Internet ads or television commercials. Some days almost all the mail is addressed to me in the exact same way as the labels on the magazines; that’s how I know my name was sold by the Woman’s Day people.
Ergh. One of the blessings of a new address is that you start fresh and many of the companies that used to send you junk mail lose track of you. But after this move, it seems I’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire. So beware of magazine publishers with irresistible offers! (On the other hand, I guess I’ve helped keep the Postal Service alive for a while longer.)
Would you like to read my new book for free? You can, and it’s all because of my husband.
You see, “we” bought an Amazon Kindlequite a while back but he became so attached to it that it’s now his Kindle (he denies this, but he’s always using it!) There are many things he loves about the Kindle, but recently he found out that he can check out a book for free on his Kindle and keep it checked out as long as he wants, and he really liked that idea 🙂
So we’ve decided to allow my newest book, Thriving in the 21st Century: Preparing Our Children for the New Economic Reality, to be checked out for free on Amazon because the economy isn’t getting any better and we want people to learn how they can prepare their kids to thrive in challenging times (hint: homeschooling is definitely a part of the process!)
Of course, you can read free excerpts of the book here, but if you want to read the whole book, learn how you can borrow it for free here.
Now that I’m not homeschooling anymore, I actually had time to make most of my Christmas gifts, which was a lot of fun, and my beloved sewing machine got a workout. Since I always need music to sew by, I bought myself some early Christmas gifts: a few new cd’s.
I learned about the first cd earlier in the fall, when I stumbled onto a wonderful new show in the PBS Great Performances series called “Let Them Talk.” It featured actor Hugh Laurie, who most people know as the main character on the television show “House.”
I’ve only ever seen the pilot of that show and I didn’t care for it. However, my husband and I know Hugh Laurie from the marvelous “Jeeves and Wooster” series, which we discovered at the Door County Public Library when we lived up in Sturgeon Bay. After borrowing and watching every videotape they had, we ended up buying the series on DVD. We still love it.
While today’s Hugh Laurie is a far cry from Bertie Wooster, both shows display Laurie’s considerable musical talent. Bertie sang silly songs while playing the piano. The real Hugh Laurie took his musical talents to New Orleans, where he indulged his longtime love of the blues by singing and playing the piano and guitar with a marvelous set of musicians. I watched “Let Them Talk,” the show that documents his trip (you can watch it in full here) so many times online that I finally decided to buy the cd so I could hear the music even when I’m not near my computer. A wise decision, as I’m now doing a needlework project for someone and can listen to “Let Them Talk” while I work in my comfy chair far from the computer.
My other purchase is actually a set of two cd’s called “The Gospel According to Jazz.” I discovered one of the songs on it (see video above) last year and fell in love with it. After hearing that beautiful song I looked up Lalah Hathaway on YouTube and found her work with Kirk Whalum and his group. You can only play YouTube clips so many times before you break down and buy the music; at least that’s my experience. Hence my purchase of the two-cd set.
If you like jazz, and if you like praise music, this is the perfect combination. I’ve been playing these over and over and I’m not tired of them yet (the rest of the family may be, but too bad!)
Just last week I found out that my sister (a radio personality) interviewed Lalah Hathaway several times some years back. Wish I’d known who she was then as I would have enjoyed the interviews. Now I know that she’s the daughter of Donny Hathaway, whose work I’ve always enjoyed so much. Even if you’ve never heard of him, you’ve probably heard him sing:
Anyways, if you’re looking for some new music or an entertaining dvd set, I highly recommend these artists:
…I’ve been looking forward to for months. It’s the shortest day of the year.
I got up at 6:45 am and looked out the bathroom window. Seeing it was dark, I went back to bed and slept for a few more hours.
I was cooking at 4:15 and I looked out the kitchen window and it was already getting dark. I hate how few hours of daylight we have this time of year.
So, why do I look forward to this day so much? Because now we’re over the hump. From here on out, each day will get a little longer. Joy!
I’ll appreciate the extra minutes of daylight every day from now until early June. Then I’ll start thinking about the summer solstice and how there comes a day in June that’s the longest day, and after that each day will get shorter. And I’ll get depressed just thinking about that.
I suppose that sounds silly. My husband thinks so. But there must be someone like me out there who’s celebrating the fact that once we get past today, each day will be just a wee bit longer, the sun will go down a little later, and we’ll be one day closer to spring. Right?
